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The Indiana Pacers grabbed the attention of a big chunk of the local TV market on Sunday, drawing nearly 10 times the audience they did for their regular-season games.

After several years of struggles, the Pacers have packed Bankers Life Fieldhouse each of the last two home games in their second-round National Basketball Association playoff series with the Miami Heat, and television ratings are back to numbers not seen in years.

Sunday’s game, which aired on WRTV-TV Channel 6, drew an 18.2 rating, according to New York-based Nielsen Media Research. That means about 195,200 central Indiana households tuned in. Nielsen reported that 36.1 percent of central Indiana households watching TV from 3:30 p.m. to just after 6 p.m. were tuned into the game, which the Pacers lost, 101-93.

Those are numbers that rival viewership for Indianapolis Colts regular-season games.

For the regular season, the Pacers averaged a 2.4 rating, or about 25,730 households on Fox Sports Indiana.

As the team has improved the last two seasons, its TV ratings have been slowly building.

This year’s regular-season ratings were up 12 percent over the 2010-2011 season, which was up 35 percent over the 2009-2010 season. The Pacers are one of a small handful of NBA teams that have seen double-digit TV-ratings increases the last two seasons.

But Sunday’s audience was a giant leap.

“Those were huge numbers for an NBA game,” said WRTV spokesman Paul Montgomery.

The game helped WRTV beat its network-affiliate competitors on Sunday afternoon. During the same time slot, WISH-TV Channel 8 registered a 1.4 rating for the Byron Nelson Classic golf match and WTHR-TV Channel 13 scored a 0.1 rating in the local market for a National Hockey League playoff game, according to Nielsen.

Schoettle grew up in Indianapolis, graduating from Southport High School and Indiana University. He then departed on a tour of middle Indiana, reporting for papers in Greenwood, Frankfort, Columbus and Franklin before landing at IBJ in 1998. At his previous jobs, he spent a decade as a political/government reporter. Beyond writing, Schoettle’s passions include animals and wildlife, watching all manner of television and long-distance cycling. Though he put away his trumpet many years ago, he remains an avid music fan. Schoettle shares his home in Southport with his wife, Elizabeth, two Pembroke Welsh Corgis and two cats. Preferring to live in a “park-like setting,” one of his primary goals each spring and summer is to see how seldom he can mow his front lawn.

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